I. Field of the invention
The present invention relates to children's garments such as skirts, vests, jumpers, and rainwear. In particular, the present invention relates to such garments which include removable adhesively attached stickers.
II. Description of the related art
The adaptation of garments for use in the entertainment and education of children has been recognized. Garments, and especially articles of clothing, are worn daily by children and therefore provide an optimum venue for entertainment and education. For this reason, there have been attempts at harnessing this venue in order to provide games, learning devices, and adaptable mechanisms for a child's expression.
For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,820,164, issue Apr. 11, 1989 to Kemper, there is disclosed a toddler's training garment which includes several "prizes" which become available as the toddler reaches more advanced stages of training. Each prize is covered by a patch that is held in place by removable stitching. When the toddler has earned a prize, the stitching is removed to uncover the prize.
Another teaching garment is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,253,197, issued Mar. 3, 1981 to Posta. Posta describes the use of indication elements, e.g., letters, that are affixed to a child's garment at predetermined locations in order to lead the child into properly dressing himself or herself.
A garment that is directed to leisure rather than education is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,055,133, issued Sep. 25, 1962 to Anderson, where a vest-like garment for use by school-age children is described. The garment includes a plurality of clear pockets which are adapted to holding pictures which the child may interchange.
As the above examples indicate, those involved with the education and appeasement of children have recognized the use of clothing as a valuable forum to satisfy those needs. Indeed, some in this field have gone so far as to experiment with educational clothing that is to be worn by a teacher, rather than a child. Thus, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,724,101, issued Apr. 3, 1973 to Slezak, there is disclosed a teaching cape which includes 21 colored patch pockets with detachable patches that display the consonants of the alphabet, and 10 patches which include vowels. Each patch includes a snap fastener so that it can be attached or detached from the cape, and a magnet so that it can be mounted on a metallic teaching board. By use of the letters on the garment, children can "instruct" the teacher to spell out words.
Unfortunately, each of the educational and entertainment oriented garments known hereto suffer from a common drawback in that they fail to give the garment-wearer complete flexibility in determining where and how to utilize the educational or entertainment driven features of the garment. Thus, the use of patches as illustrated above often requires expensive fasteners to permit the removal and relocation of the patches about the garment. Likewise, the garments discussed above require predetermined locations where educational patches and the like are to be placed. Accordingly, there remains a need for a children's garment which permits the garment-wearer complete flexibility in determining the placement of the educational or entertainment driven features of the garment.